Category Archives: Workers & Peasants’ Struggles

A Press Release from the Center for Trade Union & Workers’ Services in Cairo via Akram Nadir from Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq about a meeting called to set up a new trade union federation in Egypt.

Center for Trade Union & Workers Services Press Release

Today [30 January 2011], representatives of the Egyptian labour movement, made up of the independent Egyptian trade unions of workers in real estate tax collection, the retirees, the technical health professionals and representatives of the important industrial areas in Egypt: Helwan, Mahalla al-Kubra, the tenth of Ramadan city, Sadat City and workers from the various industrial and economic sectors such as garment & textiles, metal industry, pharmaceuticals, chemical industry, government employees, iron and steel, automotive, etc…, met and agreed to hold a press conference at 3:30pm this afternoon in Tahrir Square next to the Omar Effendi Company store in downtown Cairo to announce the organization of the new Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions and to announce the formation of committees in all factories and enterprises to protect, defend them and to set a date for a general strike. And to emphasize that the labour movement is in the heart and soul of the Egyptian Peoples’ revolution and its emphasis on the support for the six requirements as demanded by the Egyptian People’s Revolution. To emphasize the economic and democratic demands voiced by the independent labour movement through thousands of strikes, sit-ins and protests by Egyptian workers in the past years.

What I would like to do here is provide a bit of a counter balance to the coverage of the revolution’s 50th in the bourgeoisie media. Unlike they, who will undoubtedly focus on the admitted negatives that are faced by the Cuban people, I will focus here on the real and serious gains of the Cuban people that are a result of the revolution. I hope you find these facts enlightening.Here is just a quick look at some before and afters:

And, leading on from the women in government stats, here are some other gains that the women of Cuba have made over the last 50 years:

The Cuban constitution guarantees full equality for women. Women receive equal wages as men for doing the same work, and sexual discrimination is forbidden by law.

By law, men must share equally in house work with women with whom they live.

Pregnant women in Cuba are guaranteed maternity leave, with full pay, before and after the birth of their child/ren.

49.5% of all Cubans who have graduated college, and 62% of all Cubans who are currently university students are women.

Before the Cuban Revolution women made up less than 20% of the workforce (17% in 1956). One of the largest areas of employment for women was prostitution (mostly with tourists from the U.S.). Today women comprise 44% of the workforce in Cuba.

66.4% of all technicians, 87% of all administrators, 53.9% of all service workers, 51% of all doctors, 43% of all scientists and 33.5% of all managers in Cuba are women.

35% of the members of Cuban Parliament are Women. 16.1% of the State Council, 18% of the ministers, 22.7% of the Vice-Ministers, 61% of all attorneys, 20% of all officers in the armed forces, 49% of all judges and 47% of all judges in the Supreme Court in Cuba are women.

The life expectancy of women in Cuba is 79.8 years, several years higher than the average in Latin America.

Maternal mortality in Cuba is only 33.9 per 100,000 live births. The average for Latin America in 2004 was 94.7.

Infant mortality in Cuba is 5.8 per 1000 live births (the lowest in Latin America, and lower than that of the U.S.).

As for all Cubans, access to education and health services, including sexual and reproductive health is universal and free for all Cuban women.

Abortion, which was legalized in 1965, is free to all Cuban women on demand.

Childcare is provided in Cuba for all children from 3 months to school age at rates so low, it’s basically free.Eighty-five percent of Cuban women over the age of 14 are members of a grass roots Non-governmental organization called the “Federation of Cuban Women.” To a large extent, the success in implementing the legislation relating to the rights of women has been achieved thanks to the work of the Federation of Cuban Women. The Federation plays a major part in the debate and creation of laws that affect Cuban women.

And finally, here are some other facts about Cuba and its revolution:

Cuba is among the top five Latin American countries in protein and calorie intake.

Cuba has compulsory education through the ninth grade and available to 12th grade to all youth; university enrollment exceeding 200,000 with another 90,000 students graduating annually from one of 600 technical and professional training institutes — all absolutely free.

The average Cuban worker has ten years of education; one of every ten scientists in Latin America and the Caribbean is in Cuba (although Cuba makes up only 2% of the region’s population).

In Cuba, 50% of all skilled workers or professionals (including physicians) are women & 29% of management positions are held by women.

Ninety-four percent of the population has electrical service in Cuba, surpassing the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean by some 20%. Television reaches even remote mountain areas and Cuban radio covers the entire island.

The Cubans have built formidable pharmaceutical, genetic engineering and biotechnology industries, and have twenty scientific research centers investigating products from inexpensive pharmaceuticals to “green medicine.”

The UN recently announced that Cuba is the only country in Latin America that has no malnutrition.

The majority of Cubans own their homes. During the urban reforms in the early sixties, those Cubans paying rent to landlords who had fled to Miami, continued to pay the same rent to the State for a period of 5 to 10 years after which time the house or apartment became theirs. Servants who lived in the houses of the rich paid rent to the State and became owners of those homes after a period of years. New homes were bought with a government mortgage for approximately $5,000 (with a 2% to 4% interest rate payable over 20-30 years, paid off at no more than 10% of the chief breadwinner’s income).

Gas bills in Cuba average 2-4 pesos (8-16 cents) a month; electricity 5-7 pesos (20-28 cents) a month; telephone 6-8 pesos (24-32 cents) a month, the first 300 minutes being free. As you can see, all these services are subsidized by the State.

In 1999, the Latin American Laboratory for the Evaluation of Educational Quality (LLECE) tested 4,000 students in third and fourth grades in 100 randomly selected schools in 14 Latin American countries. Cuba’s Elementary Education came out on top. The Cuban children scored 350 points on a scale of 400. Despite the economic blockade, the State maintained free education with a 1,585 billion pesos educational budget in 1999. School enrollment is 100% on the elementary level, and 95% on the secondary level. There is one teacher per 40 children compared to one per 103 in the world. While in 1959 Cuba had only 3 Universities, it now has 47 which have graduated 600,000 students. In 1952, less than 50% of Cuban children went to school, over 40% of the population was illiterate, and 10,000 of the existing 25,000 teachers were unemployed. Now, every child has access to free education, remains in school through 6th grade, and then continues on with secondary education. In most Latin American countries 50% of all enrolled children leave by 4th grade.

The Cuban “Yes, I can” literacy method has been used to teach 3,192,000 people in 28 countries how to read and write.

A divorce usually takes about 3 months in Cuba and costs $5. Everything is split equally between the separating couple. If there are children involved, the ex-husband has to pay 10% of his wages as alimony, and usually leaves the house so that his ex-wife and children can live in it.

In Cuba, sovereignty resides in the people. Over 97% of the people eligible to vote, vote in an electoral system which serves to nominate and then elect those best suited to fulfill their position. There are three Assemblies: the Municipal Assembly, the Provincial Assembly, and the National Assembly. In the Municipal Assembly, neighbors nominate their candidates who are finally selected by secret ballot vote by the entire constituency. The fact that candidates are not nominated by the Communist Party but by the people themselves, itself marks the democratic nature of the process. In the same way, the election of the members for the Provincial and National Assemblies are selected by secret ballot vote by the people directly. The election process has two phases: it consists of (1) electing the delegates for the Municipal Assembly, and (2) electing the deputies to the Provincial and National Assemblies.

The Cuban Constitution (discussed and created through numerous public meetings and adopted by secret ballot in a referendum in 1976) states, in the First Article of the Electoral System, Article 131, that: “All citizens with the legal capacity to do so, have the right to take part in the leadership of the State, directly or through their elected representatives to the bodies of People Power, and to participate for this purpose and as prescribed by law in the periodic elections and people’s referendums through free, equal, and secret vote.” In Cuba, you will find grass-roots democracy never seen anywhere else in the world, where the people themselves nominate their candidates for election. A candidate must get more than 50% of a secret ballot vote to get elected. Every candidate nominated faces the electorate on his/her own merit.

The Communist Party of Cuba is forbidden by law to play any role in the elections. The only publicity allowed candidates is a posted biography with a photograph of the candidate. They are not allowed to spend money on furthering their chances for selection. Neither are State organizations permitted to issue statements favoring any candidate.

In order to join the Partido Comunista Cubano (PCC – Cuban Communist Party), Cubans must be chosen as model workers by their co-workers.

Cuba’s highest leadership body is the Council of State, of which Raul Castro is the elected President. He was last elected in 2008.

Cuba is a founding member of the Human Rights Council and the United States is not. Cuba was elected with the overwhelming support of 135 countries, more than two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly, while the United States did not even dare to run as a candidate.

Despite all the media coverage of all the people leaving by boat, by percentage, few Cubans actually leave Cuba, and there are many issues involved. Firstly, before the Cuban Revolution the United States gave very few Cubans visas to come to the United States, but after the revolution the doors were opened wide. Secondly, the United States has held an unjust trade embargo against Cuba for 40 years (which has been condemned several times in the United Nations by almost every country in the world) which has caused the people of Cuba to suffer. Finally, the United States enacted the ‘Cuban Adjustment Act’, the only act of its kind anywhere in the world, which grants residency to anyone, no matter if they are a criminal or not, who leaves Cuba and reaches the United States in any fashion. Imagine if the same act applied to all of Latin America! How many people from other countries would leave for the United States? How many people leave places like Mexico and the Dominican Republic now?